Welcome to the Jungle
by bsloths
Summary: Jay Hogart told Manny Santos that his parents lived in Malta. This was a lie. Then he told her that his mother had died, and he lost touch with his father. This was the truth. Or was it? Jay-centric oneshot.


I couldn't help but think there was more to Jay's past when he told Manny the truth about his parents in "Sweet Child O' Mine." We may never know the whole story, and I'm not even sure that what he said _is_ the truth anyway. This story explores Jay's past as I think it might have been.

A big thank you to TheBucketWoman for her thoughts on the matter. (Some of your ideas from our conversations are in here, so I hope you like how I did this!) Lots of credit goes to her for her brilliant views on our friend Mr. Hogart.

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi or its characters. But boy do I love me some Jay. Mike Lobel is fantastic.

**Welcome to the Jungle **

Jason had no memory of his mother. Lydia Johnson had died of cancer when he was three, and his father had removed every picture of her from around the house. All he knew about her was that she was beautiful. His father told him that once.

Jeffrey Johnson did his best as a single dad. He spoiled Jason rotten, and tried to keep him out of trouble. But somehow trouble always seemed to find the young man, whether he was up past his bedtime sneaking treats from the kitchen, or terrorizing the neighbor's cat.

When Jason was five, Jeffrey found another wife. Stepmother Number One had no idea how to deal with children. She let Jason do whatever he wanted. Jeffrey had gotten a promotion at work, so he wasn't home very often. Stepmother Number One basically ignored Jason, so he was forced to grow up quickly. He learned to make his own meals and entertain himself. Unfortunately, that entertainment involved more and more dangerous pursuits.

Stepmother Number One lasted until he was eight. When Jason was nine, Jeffrey got married again, to a woman with her own infant son. She had just lost her husband. Stepmother Number Two and Jeffrey were so busy with the baby that Jason was left to his own devices yet again. His father forgot to give him allowance one week, so Jason went to a candy store and stole what he wanted. He liked the rush.

Stepmother Number Two left after four years. Jeffrey didn't fall in love with another woman until Jason was fourteen.

Stepmother Number Three was nice enough. She treated Jason with respect. But Jason had become too jaded by his past relationships to attempt to get to know her. He didn't want a mother after living for eleven years without one. So he made a big scene at their wedding, screaming and knocking over furniture. His father kicked him out of the house. Jason had been arrested several times by this point, and Jeffrey had had enough.

Jason moved in with a friend from school. After a week, he called his father. Jeffrey begged him to come home. Jason didn't want to, not yet. He was still too angry.

Jeffrey called Jason the next week, again hoping to work things out. But Jason wouldn't hear of it.

The next week, Jason called his father, finally ready to reconcile. A neighbor picked up the phone, and said that Jeffrey and Stepmother Number Three had both died in a car accident the night before.

Jason had nowhere to go. He refused to be put in foster care. So he changed his name to Hogart, started calling himself Jay instead of Jason, and moved to Toronto, all before Children's Aid could get to him. He had taken jewelry and money from his father's house before he left, and he lived on that for a few months in a cheap apartment. When that started to run out, he got a job with a mechanic, and, because the mechanic insisted he finish his education, he enrolled himself in Degrassi Community School.

***

Jay told this story to Ms. Sauve, his guidance counselor at Degrassi.

***

Lila Hogart came from money. Her parents were wealthy, and when they died young, they left everything to Lila.

She married an equally well-off surgeon named Jason Smith. They had a son, Jason, and were happy for several years. When Jason Junior turned five, however, Lila was diagnosed with cancer and died within the year. Jason Senior was understandably distraught. He had a five-year-old to take care of, and though he could afford a nanny, he didn't want his son to be raised by a stranger. So he quit his job and stayed home with Jason Junior.

Jason Senior realized that he couldn't live off of Lila's money forever. So he decided to go back to work, and hired a nanny when Jason Junior was nine. A few months later, he met a woman and quickly married her, thinking that Jason Junior needed a mother.

Stepmother Number One didn't know much about children, but she seemed to care about Jason Junior. They grew attached to one another, and Jason Junior was happy for about six months, until his father and stepmother started fighting. They were divorced in another six months, and Jason Junior was left with a nanny once again.

Jason Senior felt so badly about this that he found another woman to marry when Jason was eleven. Stepmother Number Two was in it for the money, and once she gambled away half their fortune, she left without a trace.

Another nanny took over parenting duties. Jason Junior was now thirteen, a rebellious teenager. He stayed out late, smoked, drank, robbed, anything to show his father how much it was hurting him that he wasn't around. It didn't work, so Jason Junior just kept at it, hoping one day it would.

Jason Senior had no choice. He had to work. So he looked for another wife.

Stepmother Number Three did not want children. She was nice to Jason Junior when Jason Senior was around, but the rest of the time she would snap at him, call him names, and sometimes even steal from him. He swore she took the drugs he had intended to sell and had hidden in his sock drawer.

Their wedding day approached, and fourteen-year-old Jason Junior had had enough of the abuse. He told his father that he could not allow Stepmother Number Three to join their family, and that if they did get married, he would run away.

Jason Senior didn't believe his son. He decided to marry Stepmother Number Three. Jason Junior showed up to the wedding drunk, and made a big scene. His father told him to get lost, so he did.

He stole his mother's jewelry and gathered up all the cash he had saved. By the time his father went looking for him, he was gone.

Jason Junior took his mother's maiden name and shortened Jason to Jay. He didn't want any association with his father. Jay moved across town, got a job with a mechanic, and enrolled in high school. He made new friends and acquired new "business partners." Degrassi Street had no shortage of thugs.

Jay rebuilt his life from the ground up, and was much happier for it.

***

He told this story to his friends Alex Nunez, Sean Cameron, and Spinner Mason.

***

His mother Lucy Smith came from money. Her parents were millionaires, and when they died in a car accident, they left everything to their only daughter. She married prominent Toronto lawyer John Hogart and two years later, Jason came along.

Lucy and Jason were inseparable. Jason was the definition of a Mama's Boy. John was constantly working, so it was always just the two of them, together all day long.

When Jason was five, Lucy got sick. He didn't understand why she was always gone. She went to the hospital every day instead of staying home to play with him. He was left with increasingly incompetent babysitters. Finally, she was able to come home. But she stayed in bed all day. She wasn't any fun anymore. She would lie there, and he'd bring in his toys to show her, and he'd make his trucks drive all over the bed. She liked that.

But one day she wasn't there anymore. He had been awakened early by strange voices in the house. Seven-year-old Jason padded down the hall to his mother's room, but all he saw were lots of people milling around, crying quietly. He never made it to the bed; his father scooped him up and took him downstairs. He said that Mommy was gone, that she would never be able to play with him again. His father was crying, but Jason didn't cry. Instead, he ran back to his room and threw all of his trucks out the window.

John quit his job and did freelance work from home. He was always around, but hated when Jason would come underfoot. Whenever Jason had something to show him or tell him, John always told him to wait until later. So Jason finally gave up trying to talk to him at all, because later never came. His father hired a butler, and Jason grew attached to him. His father stayed in his office, and the butler always put him to bed when it got late, even though it wasn't part of his job. Jason liked that someone read him stories before bed. That hadn't happened since before his mother got sick.

His father met a woman, and he let the butler go. They got married within three months.

Stepmother Number One was a young thing, probably attracted to John's wealth and prestige. But to nine-year-old Jason, she was the best babysitter he'd ever had. She would pick him up from school every afternoon, and they'd go to the park and play games. She was never afraid of getting dirty, and she was really good at baseball and basketball, and all the games Jason loved.

One day he waited outside of the school for her, for hours and hours. But no one came to pick him up. He finally walked all the way home by himself. He used the key under the flowerpot and walked into the middle of a screaming match. Stepmother Number One threw the toaster at his father's head and stormed out. He never saw her again.

Stepmother Number Two had four kids of her own. They were all older than Jason, and they teased him mercilessly. They hid his toys, played horrible pranks on him, and terrorized the cat his father had bought him after Stepmother Number One left. The cat ran away.

It was a nightmare. And the worst part was that his father didn't believe him when Jason told him all the terrible things his stepsiblings had done.

Stepmother Number Two was gone by the time Jason turned thirteen.

Stepmother Number Three seemed nice at the beginning. She showered Jason with presents, and was interested in what he had to say. But when his father proposed, she changed. She took over the house. She never let Jason go outside to play because she didn't want to have to watch him, and life became very lonely. John was more distant than ever, wrapped up in his new fiancée.

Jason got a sore throat, and his father finally took him to the doctor. He needed his tonsils out. They wanted to do the surgery that weekend, but his father and Stepmother Number Three had tickets to New York. So they told the doctor to go ahead and schedule the surgery, dropped him off at the hospital, and left. Then they picked him up on Sunday and continued to plan their wedding, which was the next weekend.

Jason had finally had it. He was supposed to be the best man, but that meant that his father cared about him, and that simply wasn't true. Jason showed up to the wedding after drinking too much and proceeded to wreak as much havoc as possible. He overturned chairs, broke the band's instruments, and knocked the cake onto Stepmother Number Three's dress.

There was screaming, and yelling, and crying. Jason ran upstairs and emptied his mother's old jewelry box. He knew it contained some priceless pieces. He also raided the emergency cash hidden in the kitchen. He took a few items from his bedroom, and ran off before his father could catch him.

Jason shortened his name to Jay and began life on the street. He moved around downtown Toronto, stealing food, hawking the jewelry when he ran low on cash, and taking down the posters begging for information on his whereabouts. He even sold drugs on occasion. Anything to get by.

By the time Jay was fifteen, he was ready for a change. He needed a more substantial income if he wanted to keep living on his own. He got a job with a mechanic, forged paperwork to get an apartment, and pawned the rest of the jewelry. Except for his mother's engagement ring. He could never get rid of that. It was too personal. It was something she would have wanted him to keep, he knew it.

Jay even enrolled in the local high school. Life turned around. He was making good money, in an honest way, most of the time, and gathered a gang of friends and a girlfriend. He did okay for awhile. Even getting expelled wasn't that much of a problem. He still had his job, and his friends took him back eventually.

And then he met the love of his life, and was truly happy for awhile.

***

He told this story to Manny Santos.

***

Which version of this story is true? Is any of it real? Does it matter?

Jay wasn't even sure what the truth was anymore. Ambiguity was much more interesting.


End file.
